I thought swiftly as I went, asking myself where I had seen those trees, and the answer was borne in upon my mind with a gush of fear: I remarked them in my second passing with Ambrose through the second wood, and they stood in that region of the wood which he had warned me against venturing into!
I hallooed to Burke, who was gotten some way in advance of me. “Come back!” cried I, “Come back!”
But too late!
For, having found his way obstructed by a sort of hedge, or clump, of mangrove roots, he had leapt over it; and his voice came to me in a note of fear.
“Help!” cried he, “I sink! Climb the hedge.... Nay, cut a stick and hold it forth to me. Haste! Haste!”
I spied a strong sapling, whipped out my knife, and cut it through. With this in my hand, I mounted to a fork in the hedge, and looked over.
There lay a tract of flat ground, all grown over with shimmering green and yellow moss and mottled with lichen and fungi, which stretched away to tall reeds, and thence to woods. A mist hung over it, and a cloud of buzzing insects. On the marge stood Burke sunk to his thighs in ooze, and sinking still. His face, as he turned it towards me, was drawn and grey, and moist with the sweat of fear.
Staying myself upon the fork, I held the sapling forth to him. He clutched it, and I pulled away; but, though I used my utmost endeavours, straining to the last bent, I could not hale him out: the morass held him like a live thing.
Indeed, my efforts did but hasten his fate; for, when, my strength being spent, I desisted, it began to suck him in faster than before. At length I yielded the attempt.
Thereupon Burke bethought him to cast himself flat, that his body might offer the greater obstruction to the swamp; but it was too late: he was sunk too deep.